Publications

Educators

10 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

researchers then asked participants to rank from 1 to 10 how satisfied they were with their votes. Those who had been told their votes wouldn’t count at all ranked their satisfaction at 5.47, much higher than the 4.04 View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

14 Jul 2006
Op-Ed

The Case for Consumer-Driven Medicaid

money in the long run." Thus, 75 percent of the enrollees in one consumer-driven group complied with the regimen for their chronic medications as opposed to 63 percent of those enrolled in other insurance plans with virtually no deductible. Consumer-driven plans... View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger

January 2020
Article

One of a Kind: The Strong and Complex Preference for Unique Treatment from Romantic Partners

By: Lalin Anik and Ryan Hauser

Individuals prefer romantic partners who universally treat others well (i.e., partners who exhibit trait-level generosity) and also prefer partners who treat them uniquely. Previous work supports both preferences, yet the literature has largely ignored what happens... View Details

Keywords: Relationships; Behavior; Satisfaction

Article

Valuing Time Over Money Is Associated with Greater Happiness

By: A.V. Whillans, Aaron C. Weidman and Elizabeth W. Dunn

How do the trade-offs that we make about two of our most valuable resources—time and money—shape happiness? While past research has documented the immediate consequences of thinking about time and money, research has not yet examined whether people’s general... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Time; Trade-offs; Orientations; Happiness; Money; Satisfaction

Read Now

Article

Reclaim Your Commute: Getting To and From Work Doesn't Have to be Soul Crushing

By: Francesca Gino, Bradley Staats, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Julia J. Lee and Jochen I. Menges

Every day, millions of people around the world face long commutes to work. In the United States alone, approximately 25 million workers spend more than 90 minutes each day getting to and from their jobs. And yet few people enjoy their commutes. This distaste for... View Details

Keywords: Commuting; Welfare; Attitudes; Satisfaction; Performance Productivity

03 Mar 2010
What Do You Think?

To What Degree Does “Identity” Affect Economic Performance?

values and make them clear to prospective employees in the process of building an organization of people who subscribe to those same values and generally want to "fit in." There is some amount of evidence that satisfaction with... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

Fall 2020
Article

Competing on Customer Outcomes

By: Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg

Customers ultimately want to pay for meaningful outcomes, not the products and services that presumably deliver them. Today, companies can be increasingly accountable for those outcomes with three kinds of technologically-enhanced revenue models. Adopt one to better... View Details

Keywords: Market Positioning; Revenue Strategy; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing Strategy; Business Model; Value Creation

15 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

Infographic: Can I Please Speak to an Actual Person?

Based on the Working Paper, Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety through Access to Human Contact (pdf) by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell. Shell is a doctoral student at Harvard Business School, and Buell is the UPS Foundation Associate Professor of... View Details

Keywords: by Katherine Vizcardo and Danielle Kost; Service

Winter 2014
Article

Does Service Bundling Reduce Churn?

By: Jeff Prince and Shane Greenstein

We examine whether bundling in telecommunications services reduces churn using a series of large, independent cross sections of household decisions. To identify the effect of bundling, we construct a pseudo-panel dataset and utilize a linear, dynamic panel-data model,... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Customer Satisfaction; Product Marketing; Telecommunications Industry

2025
Working Paper

Home Sweet Home: How Much Do Employees Value Remote Work?

By: Zoë B. Cullen, Bobak Pakzad-Hurson and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

We estimate the value employees place on remote work using revealed preferences in a high-stakes, real-world context, focusing on U.S. tech workers. On average, employees are willing to accept a 25% pay cut for partly or fully remote roles. Our estimates are three to... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Compensation and Benefits; Satisfaction; Value; Research

June 2011
Teaching Note

Red Lobster (TN)

By: Jason Riis

Teaching Note for 511-052. View Details

Keywords: Markets; Research; Opportunities; Customer Satisfaction; Sales; Segmentation; Food; Food and Beverage Industry

21 May 2007
Research & Ideas

Fixing the Marketing-CEO Disconnect

problem is that these managers don't know what metrics to measure or how to interpret the results. They may collect all manner of plausible marketing-performance metrics, from customer satisfaction to retention, but if these can't be... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 1991 (Revised October 1991)
Background Note

Manage Orders, Satisfy Customers, Make Money

By: Benson P. Shapiro and John J. Sviokla

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Order Taking and Fulfillment

20 Mar 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, March 20, 2018

account for 96%–97% of this variance. Further analysis reveals that customers report relatively consistent satisfaction across transactions, but that some customers are habitually more satisfied than others. An empirical investigation of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

The Magic That Makes Customer Experiences Stick

By: Stefan Thomke

Why do some customer experiences have that magical "wow" factor, making them all destined for success, while others get few, if any, enthusiastic customer responses? How would we "design" a great customer experience? These are some of the questions that the article... View Details

Keywords: Customer Experience; Emotion; Innovation; Experimentation; Storytelling; Customer Satisfaction; Emotions; Design; Innovation and Invention

April 2008
Module Note

Service Design in the Context of Customer-Operators

By: Frances X. Frei

Taught as the second module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations: Understanding the Customer Operating Role (606-092). Addresses the design and management of service operations with significant customer operating roles. The focus is on... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Management; Design; Service Operations; Cost

February 2016 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve

By: Ryan W. Buell and Ananth Raman

Celebrated as one of the world's premiere luxury hotel brands, Oberoi Hotels attracts and serves some of the most quality sensitive guests in the world. The case considers the challenge of how an organization with a standardized service model can repeatedly delight... View Details

Keywords: Service Quality; Service Management; Service Quality Competition; Customer Management; Customer Service Excellence; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Training; Hospitality; Hotel Industry; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Customer Satisfaction; Employees; Training; Quality; Accommodations Industry; India